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It has just been announced that there’s a petition drive underway to form an Embedded Librarians Caucus in the Special Libraries Association (SLA). If approved, the Caucus will provide an ongoing forum for those interested in embedded librarianship to share knowledge and questions, advance the theory and practice of embedded librarianship, and keep members apprised of new knowledge.

The petition is available at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/embeddedlibrarianscaucus . Please note that you must be a member of SLA in order to sign the petition. I hope readers who are SLA members will sign up, and that readers who aren’t SLA members will give serious consideration to joining SLA and the Caucus.

As a special note, I’d like to add that one of the things that has surprised and delighted me in maintaining this blog is the number of readers it has attracted from all over the world. In that same vein, SLA is an international organization — not just an American or North American one. So I especially hope that readers from all regions will participate in the Caucus. Our aim is to develop a truly international community of those who believe that the embedded model offers librarians a means to increase their value in their organizations, their communities, and society as a whole.

I’ve just posted the presentation I gave at the NFAIS Conference on Sunday, Feb. 23. It’s entitled “Caught in the Middle: Librarians, Scholars, and Information Revolutions Today and Tomorrow”. I present a view based on personal experience that greater collaboration between librarians, scholars, and vendors is needed to improve personal information management and the research process. It’s true for me, and I think it’s true for others. That’s not to minimize the obstacles — which would be the topic of a whole ‘nother presentation…

A question that always comes up in discussions of embedded librarianship is, does it work? That is, does it result in improved learning outcomes for students, and / or other improvements in achieving the institution’s mission and goals. Some small-scale assessments and a fair number of positive anecdotes have been published before, but we’ve lacked a large-scale, authoritative study.

Until now.

The Association of College & Research Libraries has just released a report that helps a lot in answering that question. “Academic Library Contributions to Student Success: Documented Practices from the Field”, by Karen Brown and Kara J. Malenfant, is the report of a massive study in which over 70 North American academic libraries participated. If you’re interested in academic libraries, assessment of library services, or both, it’s a must-read.

Here are three of eight project findings listed in the Executive Summary, p. 1-2:

“(3) Students who receive library instruction as part of their courses achieve higher grades and demonstrate better information literacy competencies than students who do not receive course-related library instruction.

(7) Multiple library instruction session or activities in connection with a course are more effective than one-shot instruction sessions.

(8) Collaborative instructional activities and services between the library and other campus units … promote student learning and success.”

These findings beg the question, how do you achieve the ability to integrate instruction into courses, break out of the superficial one-shot approach, and build collaborations across campus?

While there are various options and approaches, my suggestion would be to adopt the embedded service model. It’s by enabling librarians to get out of the library, build relationships, and adopt common tactics with others to achieve institutional goals, that we open up these opportunities for ourselves.

Some say librarians got the “embedding” idea from journalists. Maybe, maybe not. But in any case, the principle appears to be spreading. Witness this “Hachette Book Group CIO Ralph Munsen wants to move IT to the front office. Early this month, he plans to start embedding IT analysts throughout the firm …”. This comes from the Wall Street Journal’s CIO blog, “Publisher Hachette Plans to Embed IT Across the Business”, by Steven Norton, Jan. 6, http://blogs.wsj.com/cio/ .

To be sure, there are some differences between the Hachette program and what I advocate for librarians, like their plan to force a 6-month rotation cycle. However, the general idea and the goal are very similar: to supersede transactional processes with strong, collaborative working relationships, shared understanding, and commitment to organizational goals.

It’s another sign that smart organizational leaders are recognizing the value of cognitively diverse, cross-functional teams. It also reminds us that embedding is not just for librarians; it represents a fundamental shift in organizational structure. Embedded librarians should take heart that what they’re doing is consistent with the larger trend.

The metaphor of information as a flowing stream has been with us for a long time and seems as powerful as ever.

The other day I read this, by Steven Levy in the May 2014 issue of Wired magazine (p. 104 for my fellow printoholics):

“Ever since Twitter and Facebook debuted their feeds in 2006, the model of continually streaming updates has come to define how we consume information. We’ve grown accustomed to a world in which data flows by us, letting us dip into the stream whenever, wherever, and however we want.”

Levy’s words put me in mind of another passage, written exactly 100 years before by John Cotton Dana (Special Libraries, May 1914, p. 73):

“The proper view of printed things is, that the stream thereof need not be anywhere completely stored behind the dykes and dams formed by the shelves of any library or of any group of libraries: but that from that stream as it rushes by expert observers should select what is pertinent each to his own constituency, hold it as long as it continues to have value to those for whom he selects it, make it easily accessible by some simple process, and then let it go.”

The more things change, the more they stay the same. And the river keeps on flowing.

A question was posted on the emlibs list (Emlibs@listserv.miamioh.edu) recently asking how to persuade faculty and administrators that embedded librarian involvement in online classes is “important and effective.”

It’s a good question — but it may not be the right question. Instead of adopting the idea that we are going to “convince” or “persuade”, I advocate taking a more consultative approach. (See my post from July 3, 2014, “Selling and Embedded Librarians”.) Here are a few key points that I would emphasize:

1. Don’t over-sell. There’s no guarantee that librarian involvement will be “important and effective.” It depends on what the nature of the involvement is, the instructional skills of the librarian, the level of collaboration and integration of information skills into the course learning goals and assignments.

2. Start by understanding the audience. What are their perceptions and pain points? Is the term “information literacy” familiar to the audience? Should another term be used? Is it viewed favorably — is there a history (positive or negative) of discussion and implementation of efforts to improve student information skills? Has the institution established learning outcomes that include some form of information skills? Are there faculty who already perceive a problem with student achievement, or is this not on anyone’s radar? And what’s the attitude towards the library? Are librarians seen as credible academic partners, or as second-class support staff? Pushing a message without understanding the audience is a high-risk adventure.

3. Know what you want to accomplish , specifically. “Embedded librarianship” is not specific enough as a goal, and you will need various forms of collaboration and support depending on what the desired outcome is. Do you need to start by establishing program learning objectives? Or by identifying key courses where an embedded librarian would have a lot to contribute to course goals? Or do you already have a list of courses that would be appropriate?

4. Know what you will need from your audience as well. Remember that embedded librarianship is a partnership and that means resources, time, and commitment from all involved. Don’t pretend that it’s cost-free to the faculty. Rather, it’s worth the cost if done well.

5. Examples — models — help a lot. The best ones are from your own institution — which is one of the reasons why I recommend pilot projects. There are many in the literature as well, including a number in my book “The Embedded Librarian” and my report (see addendum and appendices) on the SLA.org website, also the books edited by Cass Kvenild and Kaijsa Calkins; and by Elizabeth Leonard and Erin McCaffrey.

Fundamentally, all this goes back to assessing readiness (as a library and as a university) and knowing where you are. You can’t map your route until you know both your destination and your starting point.

So often in the library literature we read various prescriptions for “remaining relevant”. Some librarians adopt that as an unofficial mission statement. Their strategic goal is to “stay relevant.”

I think we should stop talking about how to remain relevant. Being relevant isn’t a goal, it’s a by-product. If we focus outward, on how we will contribute to our communities, and not inward, on our own “relevance”, we will discover much to our surprise that we have become not only relevant, but indispensable. And that’s the paradox.

Let’s go a step further. In an interview (Harvard Business Review, March 2014, p. 128), John Cleese (of Monty Python and Fawlty Towers fame) talked about his foray into management training. He said, “…we decided that the ideal leader was the one trying to make himself dispensable.” Let’s be those leaders. Let’s adopt the goal to empower our communities and contribute to their success. Let’s build and field the tools and resources they need, even if especially when it might mean they don’t keep coming to us for the same old things. If we keep trying to work ourselves out of a job, we might find the next job they’ll want us to tackle is just crying out for our attention. And that’s the paradox.

Colleagues Elizabeth Kelsen Huber, Elizabeth Leonard, and I submitted a proposal earlier this week in the Knight Foundation’s library challenge competition. Briefly, our initiative is to collect stories and models of librarians engaging with the community, and then to disseminate successful practices and lessons learned.

A week later, on October 15, I’ll be in another web-based conference. This one is the Special Libraries Association’s 2014 Virtual Conference, a reprise of selected presentations from the annual conference held in Vancouver last June. So, if you weren’t able to get to Vancouver, and would like to join in the conversation on “Disruption, Alignment, and Embedded Librarianship: Connecting the Dots, and Avoiding the Traps,” this is your chance. (And if you were there, join in and let’s continue the conversation.) The session starts at 3 p.m. US Eastern; see https://www.sla.org/learn/2014-virtual-conference/ for more information.

Last but not least, on Friday, October 24 I’ll be at the 23rd Annual Conference on Libraries and the Future, sponsored by the Long Island Library Resources Council. This sounds like a really interesting program and I’m looking forward to it. My presentation for this event will be entitled “The New Net-Centric Librarian.” The website for more information is http://www.lilrc.org/event/1411/

Hope you’ll be able to join me in one, two, or all three of these events!